I think you're kind of preaching to the choir here. If people are watching on Crunchyroll, then there's a good chance that they're supporting the industry, even if they have a free suscription. I (like most people) will watch and maybe download until I have a chance to buy it in my language. Even if I don't buy the series, I've spent hundreds on figures, models, and cosplay. I think these are all good ways to support the industry that has produced an ever growing art style that has revolutionized animation as we know it

urashimatoujiwrote: ... Even if I don't buy the series, I've spent hundreds on figures, models, and cosplay. I think these are all good ways to support the industry that has produced an ever growing art style that has revolutionized animation as we know it

Yes, as long as its licensed merchandise, that also supports the creators of the work. The merchandiser is part of the production committee that puts together the budget to create the series. When you buy their licensed merchandise, you encourage them to keep joining production committees and keep putting in a share of the budget.

When the work is made from a manga, another way to support the work is to buy the manga if its available, either in print or digitally, or if you have a JManga7 subscription and new chapters are released on JManga7, read those chapters (since JManga7 is like Crunchyroll, its a subscription site, and the more views a chapter gets, the more royalties the manga artist gets). I loved the short anime Moritasan wa Mukuchi, and supported the series by buying the digital volumes on JManga. And when Aoi Hana is released on JManga, I'll be doing the same with that.

isisprincewrote: It's not about "us and them." Your argument seems to want to paint me as someone who downloads anime, and I don't.

Its just that your reply to whether or not someone should support anime is that one particular way of supporting anime is out of your price range. I have trouble connecting the dots between what you are saying and the topic at hand.

I'm telling you for a fact about the anime that I do own, and how angry I am at what's on the disk. I have also rented countless films from Netflix where all you get are pencil concept drawings in the special features section.

Yes, and? What do you expect to get, the special features that come with a Hollywood blockbuster?

I own classic anime, and there's nothing wrong with that. But I get them all at bargain bins and discounts, because buying this crap new is just too expensive.

Then obviously supporting anime by buying day and date new releases is not an option for you. Luckily it is an option for some people, otherwise the releases wouldn't exist in the first place and there would be nothing being added to the bargain bins and nothing being sold at discount.

I was just having this conversation last week, where we were talking about tegami bachi being $50($30 for 13 episodes). Seriously? This isn't an old anime! And it doesn't even have the dub, so what gives?

Yes, that sounds about right for buying a new release. If they didn't think they could sell three thousand or so copies at that price, they couldn't have licensed the series.

If you are not a big enough fan of Letter Bee to buy it ~ obviously how big a fan you have to be to go over that hurdle depends on your buying budget ~ then don't buy it. What is there to get angry about there?

I didn't click through that link, but I looked at RightStuf, and the street price for a 13-episode Gintama set looks like $38. That's under $3 an episode. Obviously if they had to price their new releases at $20 for a 13-episode set, they just couldn't license ~ under $2 an episode is for a budget release of a title several years down the track. If that's out of your price range, you can't expect to buy anime

I'm not saying the answer is bit torrent, or downloading it somewhere or whatever. I'm telling you that, present tense, I do have a point, studios are still misbehaving, and we are getting reamed.

Except your two examples are two quite reasonably priced series. It would be silly to think that the North American home distributors can sell new releases of home video at under $2.50 an episode and remain in business. After paying the royalties, the production and shipping of the DVD's or BD's, and the wholesaler margin, there would be no money left for them to stay in business.

Indeed, there would be no way to license Letter Bee at the traditional bricks and mortar distribution:

The only way they can afford to license and release a title like Letter Bee is that its the kind of title they sell via online distributors at a much smaller mark-up between the cost to the retailer and the MSRP. And of course its not dubbed: that's the secret of how Section23/TAN can pick up titles so early. They license the titles up front, and look to see how popular they are work out which ones will repay a dub and which one's won't. Letter Bee never hit the kind of popularity where it could repay a dub.

There are very good reasons not to purchase anime, and I gave you two modern examples.

Those are not general reasons "not to purchase anime", they are examples of two anime that are out of your price range. If someone else likes those series enough to buy them at that price, why shouldn't they?

That being said, I have a premium crunchy account, so I don't know what the rage is for.

I do want Japanese studios to take over the subtitling and digital distribution. It is not uncommon to hire translators, and it's not even that expensive. There are many Japanese-English translation options in Japan, and they could do it themselves. I stand by my suggestion at eliminating the English dub and just going straight for a digital release from Japan, with subtitles.

urashimatoujiwrote: ... Even if I don't buy the series, I've spent hundreds on figures, models, and cosplay. I think these are all good ways to support the industry that has produced an ever growing art style that has revolutionized animation as we know it

Yes, as long as its licensed merchandise, that also supports the creators of the work. The merchandiser is part of the production committee that puts together the budget to create the series. When you buy their licensed merchandise, you encourage them to keep joining production committees and keep putting in a share of the budget.

When the work is made from a manga, another way to support the work is to buy the manga if its available, either in print or digitally, or if you have a JManga7 subscription and new chapters are released on JManga7, read those chapters (since JManga7 is like Crunchyroll, its a subscription site, and the more views a chapter gets, the more royalties the manga artist gets). I loved the short anime Moritasan wa Mukuchi, and supported the series by buying the digital volumes on JManga. And when Aoi Hana is released on JManga, I'll be doing the same with that.

isisprincewrote: It's not about "us and them." Your argument seems to want to paint me as someone who downloads anime, and I don't.

Its just that your reply to whether or not someone should support anime is that one particular way of supporting anime is out of your price range. I have trouble connecting the dots between what you are saying and the topic at hand.

I'm telling you for a fact about the anime that I do own, and how angry I am at what's on the disk. I have also rented countless films from Netflix where all you get are pencil concept drawings in the special features section.

Yes, and? What do you expect to get, the special features that come with a Hollywood blockbuster?

I own classic anime, and there's nothing wrong with that. But I get them all at bargain bins and discounts, because buying this crap new is just too expensive.

Then obviously supporting anime by buying day and date new releases is not an option for you. Luckily it is an option for some people, otherwise the releases wouldn't exist in the first place and there would be nothing being added to the bargain bins and nothing being sold at discount.

I was just having this conversation last week, where we were talking about tegami bachi being $50($30 for 13 episodes). Seriously? This isn't an old anime! And it doesn't even have the dub, so what gives?

Yes, that sounds about right for buying a new release. If they didn't think they could sell three thousand or so copies at that price, they couldn't have licensed the series.

If you are not a big enough fan of Letter Bee to buy it ~ obviously how big a fan you have to be to go over that hurdle depends on your buying budget ~ then don't buy it. What is there to get angry about there?

I didn't click through that link, but I looked at RightStuf, and the street price for a 13-episode Gintama set looks like $38. That's under $3 an episode. Obviously if they had to price their new releases at $20 for a 13-episode set, they just couldn't license ~ under $2 an episode is for a budget release of a title several years down the track. If that's out of your price range, you can't expect to buy anime

Except your two examples are two quite reasonably priced series. It would be silly to think that the North American home distributors can sell new releases of home video at under $2.50 an episode and remain in business. After paying the royalties, the production and shipping of the DVD's or BD's, and the wholesaler margin, there would be no money left for them to stay in business.

Indeed, there would be no way to license Letter Bee at the traditional bricks and mortar distribution:

The only way they can afford to license and release a title like Letter Bee is that its the kind of title they sell via online distributors at a much smaller mark-up between the cost to the retailer and the MSRP. And of course its not dubbed: that's the secret of how Section23/TAN can pick up titles so early. They license the titles up front, and look to see how popular they are work out which ones will repay a dub and which one's won't. Letter Bee never hit the kind of popularity where it could repay a dub.

I guess we don't have anything to argue about then. You feel perfectly justified for paying a few dollars per episode, and I feel like it's robbery. We will just have to agree to disagree and support the industry in our own ways. The topic was about why we don't support, and those are my reasons.

By the way, I wanted to give an example of an anime that is reasonably priced. Dragon Ball z, $20 per season on Amazon. The orange box version, not that kai crap. And I do have that :-)

I've bought a lot of anime over time but not much lately. I don't torrent either(well not much, I have with a few shows not available in the US through DVD or streaming), I watch my anime here(subbed) and on Netflix, and then stuff available for free and the Funimation site, etc. I would like to start buying blu-rays again though, so hopefully I can pick up some more hours. All of my entertainment money (aside from $15 a month for Crunchyroll/Netflix combined) goes to video games atm.

Right now, anime industry came to a low point where they need Kickstarter to fund original ideas. Does anyone care? Or everyone feels entitled?

Kickstarter is not the anime industry. Kickstarter is, essentially, crowd-sourced venture capital. Being on Kickstarter is an alternate funding model. Plenty of rather successful people (Cheapass Games, Idle Thumbs, Doublefine, etc) have gone on Kickstarter to raise funds for a project, despite not being in dire straits. Sometimes they do it to circumvent the standard publishing and oversight model, which I think Kick Heart is trying to do. Conflation of those is... unwise.

As for your direct question. No, and I probably won't. It's not a project that interests me, and I don't tend to contribute to Kickstarter projects that I don't plan to care about. Except Andy K's Tenra Bansho Zero, because I like Andy K and what he's doing. I just didn't care about that project.

Support is not charity. If I want to do charitable donations, I'll give to my Make-A-Wish fundraiser I'm conducting. Not to some crappy anime.

Had I know this place existed years ago I'd more than likely have been a long standing member right now instead of a newbie. Of all places, I found out about CR through *GASP* horrible subs. But I wonder which is being hurt more by fan sites, anime or manga? I've had a bunch of manga series I was buying that I can no longer get locally because my local store can't find them anymore. They've claimed the English publishers are dying off. If those publishers are dying off and I want to read manga, I'll literally be forced to learn Japanese or go to the free sites. Learning Japanese wouldn't be a bad thing, it would just mean it would take longer for me to get up to speed so I could read. It would probably take me years to learn so the easier option is to go to the free sites. I'm not trying to justify going to fansub sites, I'd rather buy, to me, nothing beats having a copy in my hand, but if it's my only option ... I guess the point being that free sites are hurting the industry if the only place to get this stuff is from free sites.

I support where I can, I own dozens of manga's, doujin's and art books, at last count I was close to one hundred art books alone. But this stuff isn't cheap as anyone who buys this stuff can attest to. I buy what I can afford, when I can afford it. If I go to a free site, it's to see what I am putting on my list to buy because it's like a preview to me. Most online stores don't preview their merchandise as much as I would like so that's one benefit free sites offer for me. It's a necessary evil, unfortunately, for me. I think there are relatively few people who share my opinion. I'd rather see free sites go away but until they lose all their support they'll always be there.

Yeah man it really sucks when something is out of print.
I live in the UK and wanted the Elfen lied boxset but cheapest I could find it was about 80 usd used, in the end I imported it from the US for like 20 dollars new.
Theres so many awesome series I wanna own but if it's out of print then the sellers see it as an excuse to gouge you for it and I usually just leave well alone.

...So it's fine to steal as long as it's not expensive? In other words, the moral rightness scales with the value of the product?
Either taking something without paying for it is right or it isn't.

The "moral whateverness" of stealing something is most definitely proportional to what's being stolen. I'd find it to be a much lighter load on my mind to take, say, a pen than, say, a car or an iPod. But that's not the point I'm trying to make here, people.

The simple question was asked: Why don't anime fans support the industry?

I gave a simple reason:The shit's expensive as fuck.

You people spend way to much time reading between the lines than simply reading the comments. Seriously. It's like stating that something is expensive immediately implies that whoever said it's expensive is automatically pirating the shit. Well that's a big middle finger to you. It's expensive, but I still pay for it. Get it yet? Sweet Jesus, people.

Ya can't even reply to a thread anymore these days with a simple funny-meaning comment without getting raped by people who take comments here way too seriously. Geez

Right now, anime industry came to a low point where they need Kickstarter to fund original ideas. Does anyone care? Or everyone feels entitled?

As for your direct question. No, and I probably won't. It's not a project that interests me, and I don't tend to contribute to Kickstarter projects that I don't plan to care about. Except Andy K's Tenra Bansho Zero, because I like Andy K and what he's doing. I just didn't care about that project.

Support is not charity. If I want to do charitable donations, I'll give to my Make-A-Wish fundraiser I'm conducting. Not to some crappy anime.

So it's not okay for niche animation with unique design to get funding, but it's okay for niche Japanese table top RPG game get funding? Whoa, talk about blatant bias toward one medium against another.

I checked out the Tenra Bansho Zero site. Their offers are just awful. Why pay $15 for shipping when a person donates $520? That's a ripoff. Whoever donated $2800 get guided tour from some Gaijin game otaku and not even able to meet the original manga author who created the game? At least they should have gotten rid of $15 shipping charge when they reached $130,000 or offer major upgrades.

...So it's fine to steal as long as it's not expensive? In other words, the moral rightness scales with the value of the product?
Either taking something without paying for it is right or it isn't.

The "moral whateverness" of stealing something is most definitely proportional to what's being stolen. I'd find it to be a much lighter load on my mind to take, say, a pen than, say, a car or an iPod. But that's not the point I'm trying to make here, people.

The simple question was asked: Why don't anime fans support the industry?

I gave a simple reason:The shit's expensive as fuck.

You people spend way to much time reading between the lines than simply reading the comments. Seriously. It's like stating that something is expensive immediately implies that whoever said it's expensive is automatically pirating the shit. Well that's a big middle finger to you. It's expensive, but I still pay for it. Get it yet? Sweet Jesus, people.

Ya can't even reply to a thread anymore these days with a simple funny-meaning comment without getting raped by people who take comments here way too seriously. Geez

Hey, kid. If you're going to continue trying to play devil's advocate in the future, take some advice from a gadfly like myself.

1) Pick your battles and know when to fold 'em.
2) Learn to be a little less self-righteous.
3) Don't make an argument when there's no daylight between your words and hypocrisy.
4) "It was a joke" isn't an excuse that holds water with people.
5) Stop digging before you hit 6 feet.

Oh, and very important...
If you fear you may be misunderstood... explain better upfront. Or use a smiley.

I actually don't care if you pirate or not. I neither have a dog in that fight, nor a leg to stand on in condemning a person for it. I don't know you from Adam, nor do I care to. I was merely examining your argument that stealing an iPod is apparently less heinous than stealing a car, and your assumption that somehow no one is hurt by having an ipod stolen but are when a Ferrari is.

Right now, anime industry came to a low point where they need Kickstarter to fund original ideas. Does anyone care? Or everyone feels entitled?

Kickstarter is not the anime industry. Kickstarter is, essentially, crowd-sourced venture capital. Being on Kickstarter is an alternate funding model. Plenty of rather successful people (Cheapass Games, Idle Thumbs, Doublefine, etc) have gone on Kickstarter to raise funds for a project, despite not being in dire straits. Sometimes they do it to circumvent the standard publishing and oversight model, which I think Kick Heart is trying to do. Conflation of those is... unwise.

As for your direct question. No, and I probably won't. It's not a project that interests me, and I don't tend to contribute to Kickstarter projects that I don't plan to care about. Except Andy K's Tenra Bansho Zero, because I like Andy K and what he's doing. I just didn't care about that project.

Support is not charity. If I want to do charitable donations, I'll give to my Make-A-Wish fundraiser I'm conducting. Not to some crappy anime.

So it's not okay for niche animation with unique design to get funding, but it's okay for niche Japanese table top RPG game get funding? Whoa, talk about blatant bias toward one medium. I'm surprised that you're watching anime or animations at all.

I checked out the Tenra Bansho Zero site. Their offers are just awful. Why pay $15 for shipping when a person donates $520? That's a ripoff. Whoever donated $2800 get guided tour from a Gaijin game otaku and not even able to meet the original manga author who created the game? At least, They should have gotten rid of $15 shipping charge when they reached $130,000 or major upgrade to their offers.

It's absolutely fine for them to get funding, if people decide that it's worth it. They've apparently surpassed their Kickstarter goals by $15k, which is excellent for them. I'm not going to fund them, because I think it looks like crappy animation and I have no interest in watching it. I don't like most of the things Production I.G. has done. I don't want it to fail, but I'm not going to help it succeed either.

I gave Tenra Bansho money because I've dealt with Andy K several times on RPG.net. He's a fellow game designer, and I respect him as a fellow game designer, so I gave him money.
And I'll give my money to other anime I like. I am NOT a charity service. Anime is not a charity. I give them money, I get an anime to watch. Kickstarter is, in my mind, a charity - up until product is delivered. Especially now that several Kickstarters have folded, and people didn't get their money back,

I think some people are just pirates at heart, it's not about the money at all. It's just being able to obtain through illegitement means is a kick for them. I think most of us suport the industry as much as we can. It's one of the reasons I became a cr gold member( wasn't that a Mike Meyers movie). I also purchase anime when I can and it's available. Realistically for me to purchase all of my favorites would cost me way more than I can afford I also don't have the room(library) to keep them. Also I do not hide the fact that I am an anime fan(otaku) So get out there and spread the word. You just might get someone else into it, now thats really supporting the industry.